National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS), 2021-2025, St Vincent and the Grenadines
INTRODUCTION. The Statistical Office (SO), Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Information Technology is in the process of developing and implementing her maiden National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS). The NSDS is a robust, comprehensive, and coherent framework that brings together all data producers to agree on the production and availability of quality statistics, in line with the Marrakech Action Plan (2004) and PARIS21 (2018) principles.It is a framework for coordinating actors (data producers and users) in the National Statistical System (NSS), addressing statistical challenges, mobilizing and prioritising the use of resources, mainstreaming statistics in national policies and planning processes, and a mechanism for initiating change management in statistics.
The NSDS design builds on existing frameworks in the NSS and aims to strengthen the statistical capacity and governance structures to support the production and use of Statistics in the country for evidence-based decision making. The NSDS will be aligned to the National Economic and Social Development Plan (NESDP) and the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
OBJECTIVE: The main objective of an NSDS is to set out a framework for statistical planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of the activities in the National Statistical System. It helps to set out the strategic vision, mission and values for official statistics production in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) bearing on existing products, structures, processes, systems and practices. The NSDS will define the common challenging issues and crosscutting strategies, Government investment, and Partner support over the five years (midterm) and ten-year period (long term).
RATIONALE: Whilst the SO collaborates with other key stakeholders to produce official statistics, this is not done in a strategically inclusive manner. There is a need to build strong and sustainable statistical outfits and capacity at all levels, strengthen governance structures, harness modern methodologies and technologies, and broaden data sources to support the production of high-frequency macro-economic and disaggregated data in view of the dynamic data user needs.
ROADMAP: The NSDS design and implementation roadmap consists of seven (7) Phases and is planned according to the aligned timelines, namely:
- Phase 1: Engaging stakeholders(December 8, 2021 - January 3, 2022);
- Phase 2: Preparing for the NSDS (December 8, 2021 - January 14, 2022);
- Phase 3: Assessing the NSS (January17, 2022 - March18, 2022);
- Phase 4: Envisioning and identifying strategic goals (March21, 2022 - April15, 2022);
- Phase 5: Elaborating action plans (April18, 2022 - June30, 2022);
- Phase 6: Implementing and Monitoring (August2022 - December 2026); and
- Phase 7: Evaluating (June2024 &December 2026).
EXPECTED OUTCOME: The NSDS implementation is expected to result into broader and reliable quality statistics for better evidence-based decision making in the country.